Lopos announced the college's new image while speaking with FSEC members at their March 6 meeting. Lopos outlined changes he has made at MFC since becoming dean late last year as well as his vision for MFC's future, centered on distance learning.

Introducing Lopos, Acting Vice President for Public Service and Urban Affairs John Sheffer explained that "MFC serves a critical role in our public service and university missions" and praised Lopos' efforts toward "reinventing MFC."

Lopos explained that MFC, which offers part-time, evening undergraduate instruction to generally non-traditional students, has suffered from a steady decline in enrollment. Since 1971, enrollment has dropped from 6,000 to around 2,000. "Market surveys we recently conducted confirmed what we suspected: the college has an identification problem," Lopos said. In fact, name recognition for the college is so low that Lopos, who came to UB from the University of Iowa, said, "I've been told several times I work for the hospital."

Many factors, Lopos said, have contributed to MFC's decline over the past two decades. He cited increased tuition, increased local competition, the depressed local economy, decreased program availability and limited marketing efforts as major impediments to MFC. Lopos also said that increased tuition had affected non-traditional enrollment. "I raised the question of charging different tuition rates at MFC, but people broke out in hives," he joked.

Lopos explained that the college has begun some "judicious marketing" aimed at boosting recognition and overall image. The marketing campaign is a "soft" not a "hard" sell, according to Lopos, and seeks to distinguish MFC from its competitors as being the only continuing education source affiliated with "a nationally-known university." He told FSEC members to expect to begin receiving MFC literature in the mail and hearing more about MFC on cable TV in the near future.

Internally, the college is conducting a thorough evaluation of its offerings, Lopos said. "We have not been offering the kinds of programs that attract non-traditional students," he explained. Lopos expects this will mean dropping some offerings, adding others and expanding into graduate coursework. Currently, MFC offers only undergraduate courses.

"Distance Learning" will play a key role in the new MFC, said Lopos. "I consider that everything from guided self-study to computer-based remote classwork," he said. UB must "play catch up" in the distance learning field, he observed. Recently, the college received a Sloan Foundation grant to bring faculty up to speed on distince learning techniques. "The hardware is the easiest part," Lopos said. "Working with the faculty, to energize courses for distance learning, is where you have to make a real investment."

In other business, the FSEC heard that the administration hopes to have dormitories wired for network and Internet access by fall and that the student technology fee will likely rise next year, according to Associate Vice President for Computing & Information Technology Hinrich Martens.

Martens explained that even under a best case scenario, the university will fall short of meeting its full computing demands over the next several years. Despite a new technology fee that raises $2 million a year and an additional "considerable investment" by the university, Martens estimates there will still be an unfunded demand of about $5 million worth of computing power five years from now.

Martens also announced that a new "authentication system" would go on line this fall. The new "sign-on" system would offer greater security against use of the university's computing power by non-university personnel. Martens also indicted that his office was examining the distribution of computing power now, to decide whether the university's 8,000 personal computers are being put to their best use.